The Iowa State football team pushed up the start of spring practice two weeks this year. It still took too long to get here for the Cyclones.

ISU wanted to get past last year’s 3-9 season as fast as possible and the quickest way to do so was to get back on the field for spring ball, which started on Monday.

“I don’t know if embarrassment is the right word,” quarterback Grant Rohach said, “but that is kind of how we are feeling. We are embarrassed. We just want to get out there as fast as we can and prove to people that last season doesn’t truly reflect this program.”

The Cyclones are eager to show that the 2014 team has more in common with the first four years of the Paul Rhoads era, in which ISU made three bowl games, than last season, when the team watched bowl games on TV.

It was something new offensive coordinator Mark Mangino sensed when he first joined the staff.

“When you are talking about players that have a lot of pride I don’t think they liked their record last year,” Mangino said. “They decided collectively, offensively and defensively, that they were going to do something about it.”

After two months of winter workouts, that time is now for the Cyclones.

“This team is very hungry and very excited,” Rhoads said.

There is plenty for ISU to improve on if it’s to make a bowl game. The defense must not only find a way to improve after finishing last in the Big 12 by allowing 36.0 points per game , but must do so without several returning starters.

Defensive tackles Rodney Coe and David Irving will miss the spring while covering from shoulder surgeries. Also, strong-side linebacker Jared Brackens is suspended for the first two practices for a compliance issue that violated team expectations, Rhoads said.

Brackens will eventually practice. It would help the Cyclones if Coe and Irving could too. Coe, a former junior college running back, and Irving, a former defensive end, are both entering their second year inside. They combined for 56 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss and two sacks last season.

There is an outside chance both could do some individual drills by the end of camp. They are expected to be fully cleared by the summer.

“They are pretty aggressive right now with their rehab and what they are doing,” Rhoads said. “You can only push a shoulder so far, especially with the way those guys have to punch and use their hands and shoulders, so we will be very protective with what they do.”

Not only must Mangino install his spread offense, but he’ll also be asked to improve a unit that finished near the bottom of the conference in every major offensive statistic.

There were very few details coming from the coaching staff about the new playbook. Rhoads joked that Mangino locked him out of the offensive staff room, and quarterback Sam Richardson referred to the offense as using basic spread plays.

“We will be no-huddle,” Rhoads said. “We will do things at the line of scrimmage. Speed will vary as it has in the past, but what exactly we will be doing schematically, we will hold under wraps a little bit.”

Mangino inherits 13 players who return with starting experience, though he joked that about eight are on the offensive line after all the injuries the group suffered last season.

But it doesn’t change the fact Mangino has plenty of weapons that can make his offense go, led by running back Aaron Wimberly, wide receiver Quenton Bundrage and tight end E.J. Bibbs.

As seems to be the case each spring, the Cyclones are in the midst of a quarterback battle. Rohach and Richardson split starts last season. Rohach took the first snap on Monday because he ended last season as the top quarterback.

Mangino said he’s in no hurry to name a starter. One isn’t likely to be named until the late in fall camp at the earliest.

That is a ways off. Right now, the Cyclones are just glad to be wearing helmets again while doing all they can to ensure 2014 isn’t a repeat of 2013.

“We have to work on the details, the little things,” Mangino said. “The picture is starting to come together a little bit on some of the plays that we worked on today. We got to work on the finer details of it.”

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